CareerCloud's app tracks what it calls "hidden jobs leads" -- public tidbits of information that hint a company may soon be hiring.

CareerCloud's Hidden Jobs app tracks what it calls "hidden jobs leads," which are primarily news stories, press releases, blog posts and other sources of information that describe a firm's expansion plans, relocations, a new product line or other news indicating plans to hire.

It's information that can be useful in finding a job, since a company may announce an expansion, relocation or some other action well before it begins advertising jobs.

Chris Russell, founder of CareerCloud, said the company's 99-cent iOS app and website aim to give job seekers insight into companies that will soon be hiring. If a job seeker identifies such a firm, he recommends researching the company and trying to locate an employee you can reach out to with a resume.

CareerCloud's methodology is similar to what's called "open source intelligence," a term of art by intelligence agencies to describe data collection from publicly available sources.

But the data assembled by CareerCloud and released on Monday about which states have the most the job leads -- largely in manufacturing, retail and tech -- show something interesting as well.

Most of these job leads found with its methodology are in the South.

Not surprisingly, California topped the list with just over 14,000 job leads in the last 90 days, with Ohio in second place at just over 8,000, followed by Tennessee, at 7,500. The other states include Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Seven of these states are in South. Russell said he believes it reflects the attraction of the South, in part because of its lower wages. The overall trend reflects a shift to the South that's been seen before.

Moody's Analytics, in a recent report, said that only in the South "has the labor force consistently risen since 2010." That's indicative of the region's population gains and growth of laborintensive industries such as construction and consumer services, leisure and hospitality.

This interest in southern states is reflected in tech announcements. North Carolina, for instance, has emerged as a major data center hub for companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook. Lenovo is building a manufacturing plant in that state as well. Apple, however, went West, picking Arizona for its plant.

But Moody's also found job growth in the top Metro areas that are typically tech centers, including New York, Washington, San Francisco and Charlotte. Indeed, that's what Dice, which focuses on tech job listings, has found, as well. It recently determined that the top IT job markets were mostly in North: New Jersey, Massachusetts, Boston, West Coast, or in some middle regions, including St. Louis, as well as Illinois and Texas.